Drawing the Idiot

(I write monthly devotionals for our Tae-Kwon-Do School. From time to time I will double dip and post one here).

It is hard to deal with idiots.

We all go to work with idiots, go to church with idiots, or maybe even live with idiots. We encounter idiots while driving in a car or shopping at the store. Sometimes I get aggravated at the store because the salesperson knows nothing about the product they are trying to convince me to buy. I think to myself "Good grief, I drew the idiot today" (Fully realizing that they may be thinking the same thing!)

We see real idiots every day and even spend part of our time watching idiots on television. Living amongst idiots makes things tough for us sometimes. We would like to believe that if other people looked at life the same way we do, or acted the same way that we do, or even believed the same way we do, then all of our lives would be so much better.

Unfortunately, the idiocy remains.

But Jesus calls for us to look at people in a different way. He calls us to look beyond the outside of the individual, and to see their special nature. We are called to look at people the same way that God looks at them. How does God look at people? He looks at them the same way any loving parent looks at their child: he loves us. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-16 Paul writes “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all … From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view”.

What this means is that we are to look beyond the way people act, or dress, or even smell. We are supposed to love each person as a special, specific creation of God. The fact that Jesus died for every person, demonstrates the value of that life. We should not look down upon someone that Jesus has died for.

As C.S. Lewis once noted, the things that seem to last the longest in our world (interstate highways, malls, hospitals, nations, schools) are those things that will one day decay and disappear. While the things that seem to last the shortest amount of time (humans) are the things which are eternal. God has made us to last for all eternity. We don’t have to change in order for God to love us. Paul also wrote in Romans 5:8 that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus died for us all.

Even all of us idiots.